Green & Ethical Investment News and Suggestions

Coastalwatch

Coastalwatch said:

A steady rise in values saw the FTSE reach 6229 before falling back to 6076.6.

As a result the ISA made up ground once more.

ISA 98.57% a gain of 2.2%. 

ESF 106% plus 1%. 

No complaints from me.

Confidence returned this week with steady increases in values through the week concluding in a 2.25% rise on Friday and FTSE closing on 6484.3 so a gain of over 400 points.

Good news for the ISA then, finally reaching 100.1% of it's original sum.

So another 5% or so to make up for the three years of interest that would have been acquired from the cash ISA had been left in place!

Energy Storage Fund benefitted from it as well closing on 107%.

Taken out 18 months ago with an additional 4.5%, not shown, received in dividend payments to date.

Martyn1981

A new investment has now gone live on Abundance. It's for anaerobic digestion, 7%IRR over 16yrs. Anyone interested should probably look at the 'calculator' page to see how the interest and capital returns are made as it's way to magic for me to explain.

ASavvyBuyer

ASavvyBuyer said:

This offer has gone live today. The wind turbine will be in South Wales, not that far from where Mart & we live.

Initial period for application is 6 weeks, unless oversubscribed.

Details can be found here.

The offer at Ripple Energy went live to the general public (People that had not pre-registered) yesterday.

There is an article about it in The Times

Also in Business Green

The Webinar from last week is also available on YouTube

Martyn1981

No big surprise here:

Ethical investments are outperforming traditional funds

Environmentalists cheered by huge improvements in air quality during the lockdown – and the collapse in coal power generation – have another reason to celebrate. Even the stock market has gone in their favour.

A detailed number-crunching of environmentally sustainable funds has revealed that they have outperformed traditional funds across the board – beating them during the pandemic as well as during the 10 years up to and including the coronavirus sell-off.

The data, from the global research agency Morningstar, comes amid growing evidence that environmentally focused investing – once pigeonholed by City traditionalists as only for a vegan/hippy minority – is becoming mainstream. This week, Vanguard, one of the world’s biggest fund managers, launched two ethical index funds aimed at UK investors, while Aviva, Britain’s biggest insurer, unveiled a “climate transition” fund.

Morningstar examined 745 sustainable funds and compared them against 4,150 traditional funds, and found they matched or beat returns in all categories – whether bonds or shares, UK or abroad.

JKenH

Martyn1981 said:

No big surprise here:

Ethical investments are outperforming traditional funds

Environmentalists cheered by huge improvements in air quality during the lockdown – and the collapse in coal power generation – have another reason to celebrate. Even the stock market has gone in their favour.

A detailed number-crunching of environmentally sustainable funds has revealed that they have outperformed traditional funds across the board – beating them during the pandemic as well as during the 10 years up to and including the coronavirus sell-off.

The data, from the global research agency Morningstar, comes amid growing evidence that environmentally focused investing – once pigeonholed by City traditionalists as only for a vegan/hippy minority – is becoming mainstream. This week, Vanguard, one of the world’s biggest fund managers, launched two ethical index funds aimed at UK investors, while Aviva, Britain’s biggest insurer, unveiled a “climate transition” fund.

Morningstar examined 745 sustainable funds and compared them against 4,150 traditional funds, and found they matched or beat returns in all categories – whether bonds or shares, UK or abroad.

It may however not be solely due to the fact that the funds are ethical, more down to sector positioning where they tend to overweight healthcare the best performing sector but have low exposure to energy, the worst performing sector recently.

I have a strong bias towards technology and healthcare in my SIPP and had little exposure to energy so I have been lucky as well.

Often sectors which perform badly during one part of an economic cycle outperform at other times. 

 I have been taking a particular interest in the performance of a couple of funds which invest in commercial solar assets and their performance over 5 years has been quite poor relatively. 

If you want to invest ethically, do so, but don’t assume just because it is ethical it will outperform other funds. It might but there are other factors to consider. Most important of all spread the risk. 

Remember as well that fees on ESG funds tend to be higher. If a fund manager is charging 1% more to look after your chosen fund then over 20 years 20% more of your fund will have disappeared in fees.

Martyn1981

JKenH said:

Martyn1981 said:

No big surprise here:

Ethical investments are outperforming traditional funds

Environmentalists cheered by huge improvements in air quality during the lockdown – and the collapse in coal power generation – have another reason to celebrate. Even the stock market has gone in their favour.

A detailed number-crunching of environmentally sustainable funds has revealed that they have outperformed traditional funds across the board – beating them during the pandemic as well as during the 10 years up to and including the coronavirus sell-off.

The data, from the global research agency Morningstar, comes amid growing evidence that environmentally focused investing – once pigeonholed by City traditionalists as only for a vegan/hippy minority – is becoming mainstream. This week, Vanguard, one of the world’s biggest fund managers, launched two ethical index funds aimed at UK investors, while Aviva, Britain’s biggest insurer, unveiled a “climate transition” fund.

Morningstar examined 745 sustainable funds and compared them against 4,150 traditional funds, and found they matched or beat returns in all categories – whether bonds or shares, UK or abroad.

If you want to invest ethically, do so, but don’t assume just because it is ethical it will outperform other funds. It might but there are other factors to consider. Most important of all spread the risk. 

Thanks Ken, much appreciate your permission, but do please note the thread title, as this is simply for those that may have an interest in this type of investment to share information, not really created for the purposes of debate by those who wish to do something else, as they are simply, and most definitely free (and welcome) to do whatever they please instead. It does seem to me Ken that G&E investing is really not for you, as you've repeatedly made clear, so perhaps a thread best ignored from now on. Cheers.

JKenH

Martyn1981 said:

JKenH said:

Martyn1981 said:

No big surprise here:

Ethical investments are outperforming traditional funds

Environmentalists cheered by huge improvements in air quality during the lockdown – and the collapse in coal power generation – have another reason to celebrate. Even the stock market has gone in their favour.

A detailed number-crunching of environmentally sustainable funds has revealed that they have outperformed traditional funds across the board – beating them during the pandemic as well as during the 10 years up to and including the coronavirus sell-off.

The data, from the global research agency Morningstar, comes amid growing evidence that environmentally focused investing – once pigeonholed by City traditionalists as only for a vegan/hippy minority – is becoming mainstream. This week, Vanguard, one of the world’s biggest fund managers, launched two ethical index funds aimed at UK investors, while Aviva, Britain’s biggest insurer, unveiled a “climate transition” fund.

Morningstar examined 745 sustainable funds and compared them against 4,150 traditional funds, and found they matched or beat returns in all categories – whether bonds or shares, UK or abroad.

If you want to invest ethically, do so, but don’t assume just because it is ethical it will outperform other funds. It might but there are other factors to consider. Most important of all spread the risk. 

Thanks Ken, much appreciate your permission, but do please note the thread title, as this is simply for those that may have an interest in this type of investment to share information, not really created for the purposes of debate by those who wish to do something else, as they are simply, and most definitely free (and welcome) to do whatever they please instead. It does seem to me Ken that G&E investing is really not for you, as you've repeatedly made clear, so perhaps a thread best ignored from now on. Cheers.

My pleasure, Mart. I imagine you would be considered to be in the category of “sophisticated investor” so the health warnings don’t apply to you but someone like Ann coming on here for advice where to park her money needs to be aware of the risks as joefizz has previously pointed out in non mainstream investments. 

If you go back to my post of 23 May you will see I provided a link to a list of top performing ESG funds which I felt might be more attractive (safer/more flexible) to a non experienced investor than direct investment in RE schemes. I don’t regard that as negative and some might consider it more relevant to someone who initially enquired about banks/building societies than some of the other suggestions made.

I am sorry you didn’t like my last post but I was simply clarifying why ethical investments had outperformed the market as a whole and pointing out that the very nature of markets is that some sectors do well when others suffer. I would expect that the traditional energy sector will make a recovery at some stage but not reach a peak again as high as the previous one and it will continue to cycle reaching ever lower peaks. Very similar in fact to the annual cycle of fossil fuels in our domestic energy generation.

Personally I am very enthusiastic about new technologies and perhaps that is why I have had a good Covid crisis from an investment point of view. 

One cannot assume, therefore, that every RE scheme is a sound investment, hence my mention of the poor performing solar funds. It is not sufficient to say Ethical = good investment: traditional = bad investment. One has to be a little more nuanced.  There will be some excellent ethical investments as well as some that are not so good. 

People come onto the G&E board seeking advice about solar panel quotes. To point out a quote for solar panels is not good value or not a good investment in a particular situation does not mean one is anti RE. Should we just say it is RE and will help the AGW problem irrespective of value so go for it or do we say you can choose a better supplier? If someone asks about an ethical investment do we just say it is ethical so it must be good or do we point out for some individuals there may be a better ethical investment.

Just because Abundance works for someone or a local wind farm works for another should we tell people to invest in them irrespective just because they are Ethical? 

I am not saying to anyone don’t do it, just find a green/ethical investment that works for you and you are comfortable with.

Coastalwatch

With FTSE falling dramatically again this week and losing all of last weeks gains our professionally managed mixed fund ISA also lost ground dipping back under 100 to 99.5%.

On the other hand the Energy Storage Fund held firm at 107%.

Martyn1981

Hi Ken, just like all the other G&E news threads, this is one is for like minded people to share information with other like minded people. It's not here to say that folk should invest in G&E funds, nor for folk like you to argue/debate against the overriding premise of the thread.

Investing, and investments of any type, in any product are for the individual to decide, this thread is, as I said, simply to share between like minded individuals, what we find/have found. Those not interested in G&E investments would naturally be expected to ignore the thread.

If you think people shouldn't invest in G&E, then why not argue that on your "Alternative to Green & Ethical Threads" thread, as this one was never designed nor envisaged for pro/con debate on the issue.

Martyn1981

Good news for those in the EU, and hopefully for those not too, to help judge a scheme's 'greenness'.

EU to back new green finance law

The EU Parliament is expected to approve a new law next week that establishes clear guidance on green investments.

MEPs will vote on Thursday morning following a recommendation from the President David-Maria Sassoli to back the legislation.

The new law will lay down six environmental objectives and allow economic activity to be labelled as environmentally sustainable if it contributes to at least one of them without significantly harming any of the others.

Establishing clear “green” criteria for investors is key to raising more public and private funding for the EU to become carbon neutral by 2050 as set out in the European Green Deal, according to the EU.